Writes Mentzel, “Renner developed his plan of personal autonomy in response to the nationalities problem in Austria-Hungary and as a reaction to the inadequacies of the territorial autonomy plans which were circulating. Renner recognized the biggest problem with these plans: none of the proposed territorial units could be completely homogeneous. He believed that the Personal Principle would be more successful than the many territorial autonomy schemes.”
“Renner’s theoretical starting point was the distinction between state and nation. The nation was primarily a ‘Culture Association’ (Kulturgemeinschaft) while the state was a ‘Regional Body’ (Gebietskörperschaft). The nation was, accordingly, most concerned with safeguarding its culture through education, law, etc. The state, on the other hand was concerned with safeguarding and maintaining the territorial integrity and safety of its territory. He also believed that all the national groups of the empire were interested in finding ‘a rational compromise of interests.’ Finally, as a socialist, Renner believed that a solution of the national question was necessary for working out the economic and social struggles in the empire.”…
“According to the Personal Principle, each nationality would have its own rights and duties, but they would apply to each individual of each nation, not to all individuals living within a given territorial unit.”
“Each of these systems was based implicitly or explicitly on the idea that territory is of secondary concern to a group of people and that a group’s major concerns are those of legal protection, cultural rights, and so on…Both Renner’s ideas and the millet system [the origins of which remain unclear] are often assumed to have been prima facie unworkable in an age of nationalism. While the historical experience of both Renner’s plan and the Ottoman millet system seem to bear out this skepticism, one might still ask why and how these ideas failed at the time and if this indicates that they must be always do so.”
The leading – and effectively the only – implementation of what came to be translated somewhat confusingly as “corporate federalism” , occurred in Estonia. Reports the Estonian-Canadian scholar Karl Aun, “In Estonia the cultural and welfare autonomies were promised by the temporary constitutional acts of 1918 and two years later they were guaranteed by the Constitution of 1920. The Cultural Self-Government of national minorities was instituted in 1925 and was in operation until it was abolished by the Soviet Government, which occupied Estonia in 1940.” (Karl Aun, “The Cultural Autonomy of National Minorities in Estonia”, Yearbook of the Estonian Learned Society in America, I, 1951-1953. A later discussion is Aun, “Cultural Autonomy of National and Ethnic Minorities”, Proceedings of the Canadian Political Science Association Annual Meeting, Montreal, 1972, Vol. I, #3.)
By decentralizing cultural traditions and responsibilities from the state to the peoples of the various nations dispersed throughout the state’s territory, conflicts over state preference for a favored cultural tradition or identity could be minimized. Citizens of the state could support the state in its duties as a state – such as transportation systems, uniform legal codes and courts, and foreign policy – while each ethnic group could operate its own education, religious, health care and similar “people” concerns. In the U.S., 326 recognized Native American tribes enjoy a certain amount of cultural, educational and economic sovereignty within territorial reservations.